Tuesday, December 20, 2016

My experiences while serving as an At-Large member of the Gloucester County, Virginia Public Utilities Advisory Committee (The 2nd in a series of articles about my experiences and findings)

Utilities' Equipment Storage Yard

As I previously shared; I
visited Utilities’ office, equipment storage yard and water treatment plants
after being appointed to the PUAC. I began by visiting the equipment yard first
and was astounded at its’ dilapidated and unorganized condition. Being retired
from the military and from the dirt work side of the construction industry, I
am well aware of what an equipment and vehicle storage yard should be like and
why. Utilities’ equipment yard is located in the courthouse area, behind
Southern States and behind MainStreetCenter. Access to the yard is limited as it is gained
through the Southern States shopping center parking lot and along narrow roads
behind the shopping centers. The floor of the yard is made up of various slopes
covered in dirt, gravel and grass/weeds. One of Utilities’ heaviest used and
oldest sewer pumping stations is located in the rear of the yard. Beyond the
pumping station are wetlands with a stream that flows to the WareRiver.

Inside the yard I observed
several portable emergency pump units stored under a pole shed with various
usable and unusable pipeline fittings and other items and debris. These pumps
are necessary when one or more of the sewer pump stations become inoperable and
they vary in price from $35,000 to $50,000 or more. Many of the hoses and fittings
to the pumps, which are not cheap either, were lying on the ground in the dirt.
Several of the pumps had flat tires and were missing various components. The
batteries, like the rest of the pump units, looked like they had not been
maintained for a very long time. When I asked Utilities’ employees how many of
the pumps actually worked; they said probably none. They said all of the pumps’
batteries were likely dead because they had no way of plugging in chargers to
keep them charged. They said when a pump is needed they take what is needed
from the other pumps to get one running. I did not find this hard to believe
due to the un-maintained appearance of the pumps and other items stored in the
yard.

I was shown what was called “Utilities’
repair shop”. This “shop” consisted of what appeared to be an old portable wooden
storage building with a ramp at the entrance. There was a riding lawnmower
sitting in the middle of the floor with hardly enough room to walk past it on
any side because of everything else being stored in the building. I was also
shown a small recently built storage building where the employees said mostly
copper and brass fittings were stored. I guess the intent was to better secure
items that tend to walk away on their own or deteriorate rapidly when left
outside on the ground. This building was the best looking and most organized
area in the yard.

Utilities has a vactor truck
which is essentially a huge shop vac on a truck. The truck is used primarily to
vacuum up sewer water and debris and to flush out sewer pipelines. Vactor
trucks are necessary pieces of equipment in utility departments like Gloucester’s. Utilities’ vactor truck, which likely cost $150,000
or more when new, was parked under another pole shed type structure. Like the other
pole shed in the yard, there is no electricity. This would not be a problem for
most any other truck type piece of equipment, but because vactor trucks have
water tanks along with numerous fittings and lines that contain water; storing
in such conditions during periods of freezing weather will cause many of the
water containing components to freeze and burst. Utilities does a pretty good
job of minimizing damage due to freezing; but don’t you think there should have
been a heated facility for the truck to call home, before it was purchased?

There was no restroom
facility or drinkable water located at Utilities’ equipment yard. When I first
visited, there was a single user cinderblock outhouse facility inside the chain
link fencing and to the right when you first enter the gates. The outhouse no
longer had a door or place to sit; in other words it was unusable and appeared
to have been like that for a long time. The outhouse has since been torn down
and removed. I first thought there may be restrooms in the small cinderblock
building that is to the left as you enter the gates. That was not the case, as there
were no restrooms or drinkable water anywhere in the yard. An employee said
they would typically urinate somewhere out of sight or go to the main office or
somewhere else to relieve themselves.

There was a dump truck,
backhoe, water trailers and others types of utility related equipment parked in
Utilities’ yard. Even though all of the department’s equipment was not present,
the yard appeared too small and uneven to safely move and store such equipment.
There is also a lack of space to store pipe, fittings and other supplies
necessary to repair and maintain our public water and sewer systems. The small
amount of storage space within the yard is inadequate and does little to
protect supplies from the weather.

Utilities has been in need of
a new storage yard and office for a long time. (More about the office later in
the series) Several years ago several million dollars were borrowed to, in
part, design and construct a new yard. Tens of thousands of dollars was spent
to have the design work done and drawings created. Unfortunately instead of
making adjustments to the plans and continuing forward, the whole idea was pretty
much scrapped by the current Board of Supervisors in 2013. The director of
Utilities at that time wanted to buy land for the new yard, but the BOS did not
agree and directed Utilities to search properties already owned by the County,
to see if there was a parcel suitable for their needs. There was not much of a
selection and the only suitable parcels are owned by our school system, so
everything pretty much came to a halt. From that point forward I continually
suggested constructing a new utility yard and office on the old PageMiddle School property as the first step in consolidating certain
County and school system functions. (More about the utilization of the old Page
property will come later in the series)

The last I heard about
Utilities’ yard from one of our Supervisors is they were thinking about
building a temporary yard close to the school bus garage to establish a
presence on the property; in hopes that someone will want to develop the
property and, be willing to pay to relocate Utilities and the school bus garage
to another property they hope the developer will purchase; all in exchange for
the bus garage property and old Page property. I told the Supervisor nothing
should be done if taxpayer money was going to be wasted on such speculative nonsense.
Now the BOS and the school board have consented to spending tens of thousands
of dollars on a study to determine the best place for the school bus garage
facility and Utilities’ facilities to be located. Study after study, hundreds
and hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy “so called” expert opinions. What a
waste of tax dollars.

After visiting Utilities’
yard I notified appropriate County staff and the BOS of the following safety
concerns:

-No restroom facilities at the yard

-No potable water at the yard

-Unsafe equipment maintenance area at the yard

-No eyewash apparatus at the
yard

-No readily accessible fire extinguishers at the yard

I did not perform an in-depth
safety inspection by any measure. The concerns I noted were nothing more than
first glance observations.

In my next article I will
describe my visit to Utilities’ water treatment facilities. In upcoming
articles I will also share some of my concerns about safety, accountability,
water and sewer rates and a few other topics. If you pay taxes or pay for water
or sewer in GloucesterCounty; you should not miss any of the articles in this
series.

The third article in this
series will be published after the new year begins. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours!!